Shave and a Haircut
by sipsu8899
Summary: Someone is actually nice to Baldrick! He takes a day off of being abused to tidy up a bit. Set in S3. Rated T for mild language.


Meg kept a tight grip on her razor. She always had. It had been her protector, her livelihood, perhaps even her companion for many a year. What a treasure it was. Every girl should have one, she mused as she scraped along its edge with her nail. A bit of dried-on blood from yesterday's customer.

Her business, if indeed you could call it that, operated from a single rented room of the lowest order, a mockery of a storefront. Most often, her customers were desperate people. She supposed everyone she knew was a desperate person. Sometimes, however, those people needed her services. They never wanted to go see her – she made everyone nervous with her blade and the rumours that circulated about her. How exactly had she acquired it?She let them chatter, and they left her mostly alone.

Still, that razor was a commodity that many would pay to use. Perhaps a rare opportunity presented itself, and they had to make themselves presentable to it in turn. Go to Crazy Meg, bring her something worthwhile. It didn't always have to be money, though coin would ensure that she sharpened the blade and took care around the more delicate curves of skin. And so the sporadic demand for her services had provided a sporadic sort of livelihood, which was better than many of the alternatives.

The man who came in yesterday had been, like most of them, coarse, rude, and too damned jumpy. He sat down on her hard-backed chair with a shifting gaze. It was his fear of her, Meg knew, that made him so tense. And yet she also knew that it was _men_ who were to be feared. She never turned her back on a client, never relaxed, even as she held the blade to their throats. They all had hard, sullen eyes which she knew better than to ever trust. And yet, one after another, these men quivered in her chair as she did her best to make them presentable, cutting out knots, mats, and frayed hair before lathering and shaving. By the end of it all, they were about as clean as they'd ever be, and paid for the privilege with brusque, mumbled thanks.

Today had been, like so many days, lonely and dull. No one had come in all morning, though that was hardly uncommon. Perhaps it would be another day of idle hunger, of scraping together enough to make it through the night. It was fine by her.

However, just as Meg's nail had scraped off that little bit of detritus she had missed cleaning, she heard stirring outside her door. "Erm, 'scuse me…? Miss Crazy Meg…?" piped up a little chirpy voice on the other side. Odd. Usually men just marched in with a perfunctory tap. Meg called, "In here!"

The door cracked open and a small, astonishingly filthy man eased his way in. Meg could see that he was used to making his presence as unobtrusive as he could. Must be a servant. You could always tell which ones got beaten too. The bruise on his cheek, which she could just make out beneath the layer of grit on his skin, confirmed her hypothesis. Still, he didn't seem outright timid, or at least not of Meg. Maybe he hadn't heard the rumours. Maybe he was just stupid.

Looking into the man's face, that much became immediately clear. He bore an expression that could best be summed up as terminally confused. Meg greeted him as she greeted all her customers. "Well, what do you want, then?" she spat out.

"Erm. My master sent me here to get my repulsive cowpat of a face all cleaned up so that I don't embarrass him at the annual butler's convention," he reeled off, as if he had been forced to memorize a script. His face took on a look of complete relief now that it was free of its burden, and a grin emerged.

"Is that so?" Meg returned the smile before she could stop herself. This man's bearing was different than others she had tended to. His eyes were profoundly stupid, yes, but they were soft and kind.

"Yeah that's right. We're entering the dogsbody-thrashing competition, and my master, Mr. B, is determined to finish in the top three this year." The man's grin widened with pride, and Meg noticed his teeth were badly chipped. "We've been practicing quite a lot lately."

"Well. I'm sure you'll do just fine." This felt odd. Meg was dour, if not outright hostile, with most of the people she encountered, further to her goals of being left the hell alone. But this shaggy-haired, guileless little man was throwing her off.

"I brought you something," he said with some solemnity. "As payment." He reached into the dirt-encrusted bag he had brought with him. With utter tenderness and care, he pulled out a fairly sizable turnip. "I know it may be a bit much to spend this whole beauty on a shave and haircut, but it's all part of a cunning plan…" he continued, lowering his voice, "You see, this is my chance to impress the other butlers! Mr. B says I look like a sewer rat what's been run over by a fish cart. But perhaps, if I look like a thing that's not a sewer rat what's been run over by a fish cart, I will catch the eye of another butler. Perhaps one of the nicer, handsomer ones will take a liking to me, and I can run away with him, and live happily ever after, and I won't have to enter dogsbody-thrashing competitions each year."

As if entrusting her with a treasured jewel, he gently took her hand and upturned it, before laying the turnip into her open palm. "I hope it brings you as much joy as it has brought me." His voice had tightened up, and Meg saw that those large, dark eyes had become rather misty. Oh, this wouldn't do. Without thinking, she brought her empty hand up to cup the side of his pained, grubby face. "You dear thing. Let's get you cleaned up." Meg had made up her mind. She poured out the pot of hot water she already had over the fire into largest basin she had, and mixed up a bath that was hot enough to sanitize him, but not so hot as to cook his insides. Good thing he wasn't a very big boy, or there's no chance he'd fit. She sent him for more water.

When the man returned, Meg put the new water on to heat up, and instructed him to climb into the bath while she gathered her meager supplies. Once everything was ready (she needed to remind the man that he should not, in fact, be fully clothed when he climbed into the bath), she took a long stick and gathered up his reeking garments. Meg briefly considered tossing them onto the fire, but she didn't care to pollute her tiny home. Into the fresh hot water and lye soap mixture they went. Not fresh for long, Meg sighed.

Now to attend to the poor, wretched creature in her basin. He looked completely stunned, as though this was an entirely new experience. Judging by the colour and frankly unbelievable opacity of the water, it must have been. She'd just have to do the best she could. Try as she might, no soap conceived by man would lather up properly on his skin, but at least she hoped the surface grime was mostly off him, collecting at the bottom of her washbasin.

Taking her oldest rag scrap, Meg instructed him to dry off. She turned her back (today was full of surprises), and felt a slap of cold water spray. When she whipped around to berate the little shit, she found that he had shaken himself like a dog, merely holding the rag over the crucial areas. The hair on his head and body was now truly wild-looking, and the man seemed entirely pleased with himself, as if he had finally gotten something right without being told. Meg bit back the invective she had been prepared to hurl, and choked out a laugh in spite of herself. It was a strange sound.

While the man's clothes were drying on a rack over the fire (here Meg couldn't avoid filling her room with a smell that was shockingly akin to a tannery), she finally set about the business of cutting and shaving. The man looked utterly absurd in Meg's tattered shift; the hem didn't quite reach his knees and his furry chest was on full display in the low neckline. Still, he seemed content, practically beaming at the feel of clean fabric.

To her surprise, Meg realized that she had left her razor on the side table. How strange it felt to have been without it, even for a short time.

Combing out the man's hair, picking out what she could, and trimming away all the hopeless tangles took quite a long time, though he kept her entertained with intermittent chatter. This man's ideas were… _unique_ to say the least, but Meg enjoyed being spoken to without rudeness or scorn. She got the sense that the man felt the same way, and seemed proud of his many half-baked philosophical musings and plans for the future.

As she prepared his face for the razor, Meg realized there was something she hadn't asked: "So, er…what's your name then?"

"Oh. That'd be Baldrick. Though Mr. B calls me Rat-Dropping. Or Turnip-Head. But you can call me whatever you like." Baldrick started blushing. He squirmed a bit, and Meg's first stroke of the razor ended with a little nick right under his jawline.

"Well, Baldrick, keep still or you're going to end up looking pretty rough." "Yes ma'am. Sorry." Baldrick kept quiet and still while Meg finished up. She took extra care around his chin, jaw, Adam's apple, and nose, and managed not to scrape him up any more than necessary. She patted his face dry, and finger-combed his hair once more to make sure he was in top form. Well, for him, anyway. "There we have it. Get your kit on and let's take a look at you."

Once Baldrick was finally dressed (he had needed a bit of instruction on how it all fit back together again), he stood before her, radiating pride. Meg wouldn't call him _clean_ , exactly, but by God she had made the best of a truly impossible situation. She realized, judging by the light, that it was nearing evening already. Good lord. A full afternoon's work and nothing but a large turnip to show for it. She must indeed be crazy.

But as she took one last look at that happy, round, doe-eyed face, she felt alright about it. "Come around any time you like, dear." Baldrick blushed again. "But," Meg continued. "Tell anyone I let you pay me with a turnip, and I'll slice you up like a Sunday roast." He blinked and gulped. "Yes ma'am. Not a word, ma'am."

"Good boy." Meg allowed herself one last little luxury of kindness. She leaned in and planted a small kiss on his cheekbone, gave him a pat on the head, and said, "Good luck out there. Now sod off, Baldrick."


End file.
